Faced with Roland's fortress, which had burst forth from some unfathomable corner of the void, the white-haired youth made no attempt to block it head-on. Without any hesitation, he dodged, and was forced to drop the dagger that Kiran was clenching onto tightly.

The colossal fortress slammed into what seemed like thin air, yet the impact rang out with earth-shaking force. As it arrived, the material domain that Wang Yu had sensed once before resurfaced, an expanse carved out within the void itself.

"I'll hold onto this for now, then."

Kiran examined the dagger in his hand, then calmly tucked it away. He had no intention of returning it.

Roland's fortress was truly exceptional. The massive structure skimmed past Kiran's body at blistering speed without grazing him in the slightest, forcing only the white-haired youth to retreat.

"Roland... of course. No matter what happens, you'll stand against us. Strictly speaking, I suppose it's we who ‘betrayed' you, hm?"

The youth showed neither anger nor embarrassment at losing the dagger. He merely reached beneath his robe and produced another identical one. Clearly, the Utopia had no shortage of such tools.

"Heh. I wouldn't call it betrayal. All you did was delay my understanding of the truth. In the end, I uncovered the answer anyway. But the path you chose... that is something I cannot and will never tolerate."

From within the enormous fortress resounded the calm voice of a middle-aged man. The speaker could only be the greatest legendary wizard of humankind, Roland himself.

"To create such a vast domain... To carve out a material realm in the void... Of the three paths, Roland, you must have chosen the material path. Truly a troublesome opponent."

Drifting through the void, the white-haired youth stepped forward slowly, letting the dagger dance between his fingers as he sought an opening. Even with the greatest of all wizards rising against him, he had no intention of retreating.

"Since you discovered the answer and chose your own path... then you, more than than anyone else, should understand the significance of what the Utopia strives to accomplish. Standing in our way will only bring forth greater calamity."

His tone grew solemn. He spoke to the fortress itself, demanding that Roland justify his actions.

"Sulla, you're better off dead."

Roland did not respond to any of his arguments. He simply named the youth before attacking. There was no intricacy, no finesse, to the attack. The fortress descended, enveloping Sulla entirely, crushing him with irresistible pressure.

These legends had long since reinforced their convictions through the passing of eons. Their choices and principles had calcified. How could a few words hope to shake them now?

"Casting spells in the void? Heh. I have to admit, Roland, this is quite the novel experience. Perhaps your choice might have been correct, after all."

Sulla raised his hand. In the space of a heartbeat, countless radiant magic circles bloomed before him. As a legendary spellcaster equal in reputation to Roland himself, his control over mana defied ordinary comprehension.

To him, mana was like the strings of a harp, each strand ready to be plucked. A flick of the fingers sent ripples through those strings, each ripple transforming into the spell he envisioned.

He cast eighth-tier spells by the dozen. A casual sweep of his arm sent a flurry of mana toward Roland. Within Roland's material domain, spellcasting, normally impossible in the void, was liberated from all its usual constraints.

A titanic landmass surged into existence, so great in scale that it dwarfed Roland's fortress; the fortress seemed almost like a hut perched upon a mountain.

Across this earthen bulwark danced arcs of violet lightning. Gravity magic compressed the earth further as the fortress collided with it. They ground against each other with crushing force.

An azure gleam streaked across the terrain. Temporal Leap, a twin to Temporal Halt, was an eighth-tier spell that accelerated everything within its domain.

Under that tenfold acceleration, Sulla's composite eighth-tier spell formed in an instant. The spell Sulla now invoked was unquestionably a ninth-tier one. At the very least, it was far beyond the level of an eighth-tier spell.

The spell, Endless Expanse, used the ultradense landmass as a vessel. Its destructive nature came from the elemental mana infused into it, a fusion of elements exceeding any category known within the established magical system.

The hues defied description. Elements of all types mingled freely, but instead of collapsing into chaotic magic, they seemed to achieve a perfect harmony—an endless cycle of transmutation and renewal.

The interwoven torrent of mana formed an artificial Möbius loop, circulating ceaselessly. Anything drawn into that eternal cycle would be annihilated, its existence erased within an unending loop. This perpetual motion was the source of the spell's destructive might.

Sulla's spell and Roland's fortress struck one another. The impact spawned a tidal surge of energy vast enough to beggar belief. Where they touched the elemental streams of the Endless Expanse, the walls of the fortress crumbled away in great sheets. Yet the fact that the fortress could remain in contact with such a spell for even an instant without disintegrating into dust was itself nothing short of absurd. If they had been anywhere but the void...

"What unimaginable physical density."

Sulla couldn't help but grin as he watched the fortress being ground down. "Strong enough to meet this spell head-on? You might've abandoned your original body, but you've gained such monstrous mass... Can you still call yourself a wizard, Roland?"

"Heh. You used a curio, didn't you."

Roland ignored Sulla's rambling completely as he continued to maneuver the fortress against Sulla's spell.

"You noticed? Well, it can't be helped. I kept telling myself not to rely on objects that defy every attempt at study... but there are some things one simply must accomplish, and that means giving up a little of one's principles."

A wry, uncertain smile graced Sulla's lips. Yes, he had used a curio. Embedded in his chest lay a translucent vessel, wide of body, narrow of mouth. In Earth terms, this was a Klein bottle.

The curio's effect was to endlessly project into the world every form of energy with which its bearer has ever come into contact. In Sulla's case, what it drew forth was the purest mana he had ever generated, granting him an almost inexhaustible wellspring of power for spellcasting.

The outer shell of Roland's fortress peeled away layer by layer under the collision with the Endless Expanse, but beneath each shattered crust lay a deeper stratum that was denser and ever more massive. With overwhelming force, it fractured Sulla's spell, shattering it outright.

"Such strength... It's almost beyond comprehension. Given the circumstances, I don't think it makes sense for me to resist."

Sulla completed another ninth-tier spell, bolstered by his Klein bottle.

A silver radiance swept across Sulla's body. In that instant, he froze entirely as he detached himself from the material realm. The outside world could no longer affect him, and he could no longer affect it. This was perhaps the pinnacle of defensive magic known to magicians.

Beyond the Firmament—for a limited time, the spellcaster would be removed from the material world and replaced with a nearly inviolable substitute.

Roland's fortress shattered the Endless Expanse and came crashing down upon Sulla's suspended form. Yet the force that had annihilated Sulla's previous spell could do nothing against him now.

In exchange, trapped in this sealed state, Sulla couldn't influence the world at all. It was a perfect defense, but utterly useless for accomplishing his goal.

Just then, a thunderous boom shook the void. Massive shadows erupted into being all around them. More of the Utopian spires were hurtling toward the surface of the void, toward the domain where the material world lay.

The spires themselves were unremarkable. But what followed behind them, howling and ravenous, caused the others to gape. There were dozens of eldritch void gods in tow after the spires.

The collective minds contained within the Utopian spires were irresistibly alluring to these abominations. They had chased that bait straight to where Kiran, Sulla, and Roland were fighting.

A resonant hum filled the void. The instant the eldritch gods arrived, the God of Light's power activated on its own. The vast sphere of radiance at the center of this realm surged outward, enveloping the surrounding void and locking its perception upon every aberration that had dared come within range.

These beings were, beyond dispute, evil. All rational races knew this. All followers of the God of Light knew this. Therefore the God of Light would inevitably strike, annihilating any void god that appeared before Him.

Under the solemn gaze of the Pope, a blinding golden radiance engulfed every eldritch god present, a divine power entirely beyond his control.

At that moment, violent fluctuations in the void were simultaneously detected by both Skyborne City and the Lady of the Night. Emergency warnings rippled through the Alliance's intelligence network.

Without hesitation, Skyborne City activated all its primary engines, beginning the warm-up sequence for its long-range spatial teleportation array and doing everything in its power to reach the epicenter of the void eruption as swiftly as possible.